Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
85. The Suez Canal and the Colonization of Egypt - Part 3 of 3
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
England and France tried to leverage their hold on Egypt to strangle the Ottoman Empire. In 1882, they orchestrated an “International Conference” in Istanbul where they offered to relieve Egypt of its debt burden provided the Ottoman Sultan accepted the liability for these loans. Istanbul was already in debt up to its neck. In 1881, the European powers had set up the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, and in return for a reduction of debt from 191 million British pounds to 106 million pounds, had obtained concessions from Istanbul to attach specific revenues for debt servicing.
The burden of the Egyptian debt would have completely overwhelmed the Ottomans. Sultan Abdul Hamid (1876-1908) wisely declined to take the bait, giving the Empire a new lease for a few more decades. The attempt to use Egypt as a bait to occupy the Ottoman Empire was not given up until 1885, when Sir Drummond Wolff was sent to Istanbul to transfer Egyptian control back to the Ottomans, provided the Sultan accepted the liability for the Egyptian debt. This attempt, too, ended in failure, thanks to the foresight of Sultan Abdul Hamid.
Financial control inevitably leads to political control. In 1878, the Europeans forced an “International Ministry” on Cairo headed by an Armenian, Nubar Pasha, with British oversight over the ministry of finance and French oversight over the ministry of public works. Resentment against foreign intervention built up and there was a mutiny in the Egyptian armed forces in 1879. A national movement sprang up, led by a political party, Hizb al Watan. It became the dominant political force in the Assembly of Delegates, an institution that had been established by Muhammed Ali Pasha as part of his reform processes earlier in the century. In response to the Egyptian outcry, the Europeans tightened the noose and made demands for the immediate liquidation of their loans. When Ismail Pasha demurred and attempted to replace the foreigners in the ministry with Egyptians, he was forced to abdicate in favor of his incompetent son, Tawfiq Pasha. To placate the Europeans, Tawfiq dissolved the Assembly of Delegates and attempted to rule by decree. Protests and street demonstrations erupted in Cairo and Alexandria against this arbitrary exercise of power.
Unable to control the political process, the Europeans made their military move. In 1882, a combined British and French naval force appeared at Alexandria. When this show of force proved insufficient, the British, acting alone without French participation, bombarded Alexandria into submission. From there the British force moved on Cairo. The nationalist forces put up a stiff resistance but were defeated at the Battle of Tel el Kabir (1882). Cairo was in British hands.
Control of Egypt meant control of the Nile River. Using Egypt as their base, the British moved up the Nile to occupy the Sudan and Khartoum. Sudanese resistance to British penetration was led by the Mahdi (1884), but it was crushed by superior British firepower. Egypt remained under British occupation until 1912 when it became a British Protectorate. An Anglo-French consortium was set up to control and run the Suez Canal, and it continued to operate until Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Canal in 1956.
The construction of the Suez Canal and the colonization of Egypt bring out the sharp contrast in the horizons of the Sultans and emirs of Muslim lands and the merchants and bankers of Europe. The Sultans and emirs operated in the past and had no idea of the changed global paradigm in which Europe operated. With the exception of Tippu Sultan of Mysore (d. 1799) their vision was limited to their own environment and their own kingdoms. They were unaware of global currents that were shaping the destinies of nations. Certainly, they proved themselves incompetent in the fields of international economics and finance. By contrast, the Europeans had a global reach. They understood the economic and political interplay between developments in one part of the world and another.
When Ismail Pasha committed himself to a loan for the construction of the Suez Canal, he overlooked the fact that the inflated prices for Egyptian cotton were a consequence of the Civil War in America. The Civil War would end one day and the inflated prices would surely collapse. Neither could he comprehend that the credit system that he was submitting to would ultimately devour his country. Europe had entered the post-mercantile era, and was run by bankers armed with the credit mechanism whose global reach knew no national boundaries. The Sultans and emirs were still operating in the age of the soldier-kings. It would take another hundred years before the Muslim world would wake up and make a serious attempt to understand the West and the internal mechanics of its institutions.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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